A systematic review evaluating the psychometric properties of measures of social inclusion

Introduction: Improving social inclusion opportunities for population health has been identified as a priority area for international policy. There is a need to comprehensively examine and evaluate the quality of psychometric properties of measures of social inclusion that are used to guide social policy and outcomes. Objective: To conduct a systematic review of the literature on all current measures of social inclusion for any population group, to evaluate the quality of the psychometric properties of identified measures, and to evaluate if they capture the construct of social inclusion. Methods: A systematic search was performed using five electronic databases: CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, ERIC and Pubmed and grey literature were sourced to identify measures of social inclusion. The psychometric properties of the social inclusion measures were evaluated against the COSMIN taxonomy of measurement properties using pre-set psychometric criteria. Results: Of the 109 measures identified, twenty-five measures, involving twenty-five studies and one manual met the inclusion criteria. The overall quality of the reviewed measures was variable, with the Social and Community Opportunities Profile-Short, Social Connectedness Scale and the Social Inclusion Scale demonstrating the strongest evidence for sound psychometric quality. The most common domain included in the measures was connectedness (21), followed by participation (19); the domain of citizenship was covered by the least number of measures (10). No single instrument measured all aspects within the three domains of social inclusion. Of the measures with sound psychometric evidence, the Social and Community Opportunities Profile-Short captured the construct of social inclusion best. Conclusions: The overall quality of the psychometric properties demonstrate that the current suite of available instruments for the measurement of social inclusion are promising but need further refinement. There is a need for a universal working definition of social inclusion as an overarching construct for ongoing research in the area of the psychometric properties of social inclusion instruments

Hot beverage scalds in Australian children

Our objective was to compile data on the mechanism and severity of injuries associated with hot beverage burns in children. We identified 152 children over a 3-year period who attended a tertiary level burns center, representing 18% of all children treated. Their median age was 17.5 months and median body surface area burned was 4% (range, 0.25% to 32%). Significantly, 52% of children required admission, 18% received a split skin graft, and 26% required long-term scar management. In 70% of all cases, the mechanism of injury was the child pulling the hot beverage over himself or herself. In 80% of incidents, a primary care giver witnessed the injury. These findings indicate that scalding from hot beverages carries significant morbidity and is an important pediatric public health issue. It is clear that further research towards effective education programs for primary caregivers is warranted

A note on defective units in an inventory model with sub-lot sampling inspection for variable lead-time demand with the mixture of free distributions

[[abstract]]In a recent paper Wu and Ouyang (2000) assumed that an arriving order lot may contain some defective items and considered that the number of defective items in the sub-lot sampled to be a random variable. They derived a modified mixture inventory model with backorders and lost sales, in which the order quantity, re-order point, and the lead-time were decision variables. In their studies they assumed that the lead-time demand followed a normal distribution for the first model and relaxed the assumption about the form of the distribution function of the lead-time demand for the second model. When the demand of the different customers is not identical with regard to the lead-time, then one cannot use only a single distribution (such as Wu and Ouyang (2000)) to describe the demand of the lead-time. Hence, we extend and correct the model of Wu and Ouyang (2000) by considering the lead-time demand with the mixed normal distributions (see Everitt and Hand (1981), and Wu and Tsai (2001)) for the first model and the lead-time demand with the mixed distributions for the second model. And we also apply the minimax mixed distributions free approach to the second model. Moreover, we also develop an algorithm procedure to obtain the optimal ordering strategy for each case.[[notice]]補正完畢[[journaltype]]國